Robots on the runway: Yohji Yamamoto, Viktor and Rolf

Snip from the Style.com review of Yohji Yamamoto's Fall 2007 Ready-to-Wear runway show in Paris:

Next came an interlude of black-and-white polka-dot hoop skirts that at the touch of a switch revolved, the tiers of the most complicated one turning in different directions. Despite the inevitable comparisons that will be made to Hussein Chalayan (who sent out his own motorized showpieces last season), you could feel the audience breathe a sigh of happy relief. This was more familiar territory.

ShowStudio's blog has video of the Yamamoto motion skirt: Link.

For background, here are two earlier BoingBoing posts about that mechanized clothing from Chalayan, referenced in this review: Link 1, Link 2.

The Viktor & Rolf show in Paris this week also incorporated unusual uses of electricity:

Should anyone have the idea that today's models are a limp and weedy bunch, they might take a look at what they had to put up with—literally—at Viktor & Rolf. First, the girls had to shoulder heavy steel rigs, further weighed down with tungsten lights and speakers, some of them built up high above their heads. Then, unable to bend or use their arms to balance, they were asked to walk the runway wearing giant, clunky high-heeled Dutch wooden clogs. As the rigs got bigger and the girls' expressions more frozen with fear, involuntary gasps escaped from the audience. "Oh my God, she's listing!" hissed one observer. "I can't look!" cried another. "That poor girl's slipping!" shrieked someone else. By pure luck, no one did fall (...)

Link to Style.com review of that show, with slideshow. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin)